Lighting

Lighting is a very imporant aspect of a music video as different types of lighting connotate different meanings. Before filming my music video I had to seriously think about what kind of lighting I wanted to use that would best suite the ideology of my video and also the genre. I decided to use as much natural lighting as possible as my the genre of my artist's music (male acoustic) is very slow and calm paced and felt that this would best represent a peaceful setting. Using natural lighting will also fit best to my anchillary tasks as the photos for my album cover and magazine advert are taken in an open natural environment and to make all three of the products carry a brand identity I shall carry this theme on through my music video. Below are a few screen shots of different lighting situations that I used in my music video as it was not possible to use natural lighting all of the time so I have explained how I used other light sources to fit in with my genre.

The very first shot in my music video is meant to show my actor waking up, getting out of bed and then opening the curtains. I have put an effect on the opening scene to make it black and white until the curtains are open and then the footage goes back to normal colour. The lighting is quite dim until the actor opens the curtain and the bright day light shines through the window.



For the majority of my footage I have used natural lighting for the outdoor scenes as there was not much additional lighting that I would add to the day light and also felt that the natural light was enough as the weather was not too sunny so it set quite a sad mis-en-scene which matches the tone of the song.

In my night scenes where my actor is outside I have taken full advantage of car lights as I felt that these were visually exciting when the cars are moving and want to play about with speeding up and slowing down my footage of my actor watching cars drive past him.

After the time-lapse transition part that I have filmed of the sky turning from day to night I have kept the curtains open to show when it is day and when it is night to show continuation. The only other additional lighting that I have used in these scenes is a little lamp that you can see beside my actor which connotes being alone.

Stop Frame Animation

Within my music video I have decided that I want to have a stop frame animation scene.Stop frame animation also known as stop motion is an animation technique by which an object is photographed repeatedly with a small movement of the object in between each individual frame and when all of the photos are played together in sequence it creates the illusion that the object is moving.

Stop frame animation has been used in an increasing amount of music videos and I feel that this animation technique is very suitable for music videos as the movement of the object can be fitted in time with the music in the editing stages.

For my animation scene I want to establish a clear meaning of the song as throughout the video the focus is predominantly all on the musician and so without actually filming a girl character I can still make it clear that the song is based around his relationship with a girl. I shall do this by showing pictures of my musician with his girlfriend piling up on eachother and then being destryoed in some way to symbolise the trouble in the relationship that the lyrics are about.

Below I have shown the stages of how I created my stop frame animation.

1. I first had to print of my chosen pictures as a prop for the animation.

2. I then had to establish a suitable setting for the animation. I chose to use the flat surface of a wooden desk as I do not want it to be a complicated setting that will detract from the animation and it also makes sense that the pictures are being layed out onto a desk.

3. Now that I had organised my props and settings I had to take the photos for the animation and I did this using a Nikon D40 camera and a tripod to keep the camera still as the technique is less effective if the camera moves inbetween frames. To take the photos I started off with a blank desk and then took a photo everytime a new image was layed onto the next and everytime there was a movement of the actors hand or the props.

4. Using photoshop CS5 extended edition I then put the photos into sequence. I did this by opening my first image and then creating a new layer, putting the next image onto the new layer and then continued this proccess until I had got all of my photos into order. Below is a printscreen of how I did this.

5. Once I had uploaded all of my photos in order I then had to decide how long I wanted each frame to show. It is more effective if each frame lasts less then a minute so that the movement is more smooth, after listening to song carefully I have decided that each frame should last 0.2 seconds so that it fits in time with the music and also so that the animation doesn't last too long.



6. After completing my stop frame animation I then had to save it and convert the file from a pdf into a gif so that it would be recognised by the sofware that I am going use for editing my music video.

Below is my finished stop frame animation that I will use in my music video;

Props and Equipment

As well as planning the shots and the locations of my music video it is important that I plan out exactly what props and equipment I will need for filming so that all of the costumes and props that I would need for filming as good organization will be essential if I want to complete my music video in the time given. To help make sure that I have everything that I will require to film my music video I have made a prop and equipment checklist which I shall tick of to make sure that I do not forget anything as I am travelling to the location to film. Below is my checklist that I took with me.